


Thirteen Ways and More to Care for a Werewolf from Gallifrey

by RedMenaceH



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Blood and Violence, Eternal Champion - Freeform, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, One Shot, Rabbits, Series, Slice of Life, Transformation, Werewolf, thasmin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23509822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedMenaceH/pseuds/RedMenaceH
Summary: What could possibly go wrong with the Doctor becoming a werewolf? Very little it turns out.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 9
Kudos: 41





	1. The Fam Get a Werewolf

The Doctor fidgeted with her right shoulder. Half an hour had gone by since her and the fam had gotten back to the Tardis, in that time she had alternated between moving it in a circular motion and rubbing it firmly, digging her fingers in deep in hopes of finding an elusive trapped nerve.

It was the agitation in one of the Doctor’s sighs which tipped them off to her discomfort. “Doctor?” It was Yasmin to broker the silence.

The Doctor lifted her gaze from console to Yaz, hand resting on her shoulder. “Hmhm?”

“Are you okay?”

“Course,” she said, trying to sound normal for her only to give it away by the way she seemed to dig the palm of her hand into her shoulder. “Not everyday you return an ancient Something to its rightful Someone from Somewhere.”

The Tardis could translate a near infinite number of languages at the drop of a hat but, as it turned out, if the entity in question was an anomalous abstraction in the linearity of conceivable time and space it struggled. “Why not a museum in the far flung future?” Ryan's suggestion seemed so uneventful and for the first ten minutes it had been until, that is, the Someone had arrived in a cluster of shattering shades of solidified light and what should've been a slow drift from exhibition to display turned into six hours running from area to area, falling through floors and piercing together the puzzle of what its intentions were.

“So your shoulder’s fine? Nothing for any of us to worry about?”

For all the chaos of reality hurling its guts out on the floor to the every shift of the Someone’s redefinition of self, the Doctor, in the way only she could pull off like a magic trick, strode from the whole thing without a scratch or stain until catching her shoulder on the tip of a tooth jutting out from a massive wolf’s skull display, piercing right through the fabric of her coat and causing her to flinch. But quickly enough, as always, she dismissed concern with “Be right as rain by tomorrow” and led them right into the gift shop.

The Doctor spoke as though she wasn’t used to having such a minor twinge aggravating her so incessantly. “It's a bit more sore than I’m used to. Nothing unusual about that. Not in the slightest. Give it a few and, poof, gone like that.”

“Really, Doctor?”

“Yeaaah. That’s Gallifreyan physiology for ya. Cells are always on fire. Always on the move. Can’t stand still without trying to do something else.”

Yasmin couldn’t help but imagine personified cells in the form of a hardhat wearing Doctor getting to work on a cut, mending it back together. “Sounds like you in a nutshell.”

“I…..suppose,” she said, fumbling the response with a vigorous circular motioning of her shoulder. “Just a twinge. Be fine when the lot of you get up tomorrow.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Sure. Sure. Super sure.” The Doctor gave Yaz an assured thumbs up and sunshine bright smile. “And anyway,” she added, “I should be asking how the lot of you are. Fell through quite a few floors today.”

“Ryan’s relaxing on the PlayStation, Graham’s cooking himself some supper and I’m standing here…..right as rain. I think it’s safe to say we’re good, Doctor.”

“Supper without any of us? How dare he?”

“He did ask,” she said, amused by the Doctor’s mocked outrage. “I think you might’ve been, possibly, distracted by something. Don’t know why. Complete mystery.”

The Doctor rubbed her shoulder without thinking. “Cheeky Yasmin.”

Yasmin, without meaning to, yawned. “Gonna head off. Uh! Never been more exhausted by a museum in my life than today. It’ll be a day too soon if I ever see another Someone from Somewhere.”

“Plenty good at parties if you find them at the right time. I swear.”

“I believe you,” she said, beginning to leave for her bedroom aboard the Tardis. “Let us know if it’s still a problem tomorrow, Doctor. Don’t have to keep everything a secret.”

“I’ll be fine.”

As she walked away, Yasmin yawned and stretched her arms, unaware of the Doctor watching her do so. Soon enough, she was gone, leaving the Doctor alone with her thoughts and that darn soft ache in her shoulder.

Her hand worked the spot for a time before shifting to her upper arm. “It’s fine,” she told herself.

-

Ryan, Graham and Yaz were quite prepared to be woken up by a random explosion followed by the Doctor's voice calling for everyone to remain calm and that there was nothing to worry about. Knowing her, it probably was nothing and they would, drearily, drift back to sleep. Half-remembering the whole thing and expecting, by the morning, to see the Doctor act as though nothing of note had taken place during the night.

No such explosive incident came to pass. The Doctor went about trying to fix a dodgy circuit and misaligned polarity loop. The Tardis drifted through the time vortex. Everyone slept. The Doctor collapsed.

-

Life aboard the Tardis did have its routines (honest) when they weren’t contending with the vast scope of dangers scattered throughout the majestic web of time and space. Before that, when the days were just beginning and the Tardis hummed its mechanical purr from the deepest depths of itself, everything began with getting up, getting changed and, depending on the order of the day, getting a cup of tea before heading to the Console Room where, like one of the many gears found within a pocket watch, the Doctor would be waiting for the fam to get the ball rolling on where to go.

Yasmin’s first thoughts of the day once she had woken up, blurry eyed and aching all over, were  “ _ No museums. Not for a while at least.”  _ followed by  “ _ Definitely need to start stretching before leaving the Tardis. There’s always running. When hasn’t there been running? Hm. Not as clever as you think, Doctor. If I was, I would’ve started doing that already, wouldn’t I. Hm. Hm.” _

She picked herself up, escaping the comfort of the duvet and out into the world to begin the day. Getting dressed with a thought of what the Doctor would see and be instantly smittened by. Going to the kitchen a minute’s walk from her bedroom, where she would find an old copper kettle already simmering away on a cast iron stove, steam escaping its spout. “Thank you…” she would say, looking up as if expecting to see some obvious visual cue among the rafters that this was definitely the work of the Tardis. None were there.

Routine as always. Only not so routine. An undercurrent of the Tardis’s mechanical purr hid around the corner of anywhere and everywhere, like the blip in a song where you’re not quite sure if someone was just knocking at the door or it was part of the tune itself. So minute a change to the soundscape of the Tardis it became stuck between the purring of an ancient engine of time and the bubbling of water from a kettle, impossible to notice unless one tried listening to it. The high pitch whimperings of an animal caught in a trap.

The morning routine carried on. A tea bag dropped into the mug (plucked from the overhead cupboard where an assortment of mismatched mugs were messily arranged, no reason, no point, all cluttered together and leaving Yasmin to imagine how the Doctor came to have so many) and left to stand, stirred every so often and finally sipped tentatively. “Just right,” she murmured and leaned against the counter, steadily working her way through the tea until none of it was left.

No water bubbling to a boil, the whining nudged its way beyond the purring, loud enough to be thought of yet not noticed in full, still a soft edged blip in the soundscape of the Tardis, easily missed and ignored.

Mug cleaned and left on the draining board, Yaz left the kitchen for the console room, another minute’s walk and steadily, very steadily, catching onto the whimpering, becoming clearer against the purring of the Tardis.

That was when the routine came to an end, footsteps drawing to a stop and Yasmin listening intently to the whimpering. Now a shuddering rise and fall, sometimes low and staggered and others time sharp and quick.. “Hey, Doctor? You there?” she called, unsure of what to expect but waited with bated breath for an answer.

The whimpering answered her call.

Yasmin didn’t hesitate to begin moving again, listening to the whimpering and judging where it came from. Clearly from the direction of the console room, now only the shortest distance of a few more steps. Through an archway and out into the outer edge space of the room itself, coming to a stop and peering up at the enclosure of hexagons resembling broken eggshells around the console itself, elevated by a multi-tiered platform. She expected to be met by a change, a difference, something disconcerting, but nothing seemed different, everything was as it had been. The crystalline pillars and time rotor glowed softly, the mechanical purr hummed from every surface and the movement beneath her feet, the near unnoticeable shudder told her the Tardis was still on the move. The guttural whimpering was clear as crystal.

With cautionate steps, she moved, easing her way to a better view of the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was making the noise. In a matter of seconds, circling around to the walkway between the doorway and console, her view grew in scope and the glow of crystal pillars, panels of the floor and symbols etched around the base of the platform revealed it.

“ What the….” her words came out as a low whisper, eyes fixed on the shape of a creature on the walkway. Her mind kicked into gear.  _ Big,  _ she noted from the way it laid across the floor, sprawled on its side.  _ Moving,  _ she noted, its chest rising and falling with each whimper and whine.  _ No Doctor.  _ That was a given.

Another step, another angle, the squeak of her boot’s grip against the floor. A twitch of movement, the ceasing of its whimpering, an ear sifting the new noise and up the creature rose from its spot. Yasmin froze midstep, breath catching at the back of her throat and suddenly aware of every sound in the room. The quick sniffs it took, the claws scraping at the floor, the gentle shift of its head. At least, if the moment called for a silver lining, she could make it out in far greater detail. A humanoid-ish wolf loomed far larger than any of them and, to her, would struggle to get through any of the doors without having to crouch; dark grey fur; elongated features; forelimbs lanky; body proportions top-heavy and finished off with a bushy tail.

She waited for something to happen. Herself to move back into the corridor hidden away behind her, it to turn around and explore its new environment. Anything. But nothing happened.  _ Not the best time to freeze up,  _ she thought, watching the creature become more aware and assured of its surroundings with a low murmuring of noise boiling away at the back of its throat. The thing’s great jaw opened wide, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth, eyes screwed tightly shut, the head thrown back and its body stretching to let out an almighty, run-of-the-mill, just woken up, yawn. Low. Rough. Growly. A yawn like any other.

“Uh! My head!” came its voice, deep, rough and with a northern twang. It looked about its surroundings, eyes blinking disconnectedly and smacked its mouth open and close before meeting Yasmin’s line of sight. “YAZ!” It exclaimed, excitement bubbling away even with a rougher and deeper voice. They fumbled onto their hindlegs, managed a few shakey steps before falling. Not that seemed to matter to them. “Did I wake any of you? There was a fire I tried putting out, but it just kept spreading. Had to jettison that bit in the end. Don’t worry, it’s all good.”

Yasmin stared, she stared for an uncomfortably long time in silence as this wolf ( _ Werewolf? The Doctor? _ ) steadily crossed the room without letting a little lack of balance dampen their spirit, rambling away and looking increasingly worried at the apparent silence. “Uh! There’s not a fire I missed, Yasmin?”

“No. I don’t think so. Did anything else happen last night, Doctor?” She really wasn’t sure how to broker this, staring up at them standing there with the most inquisitive look.

“Besides the fire. Can’t remember falling asleep. Shoulder’s all good now. OH! I was having the weirdest dream,” started the Doctor, rubbing her eyes and very clearly not twigging the situation at hand. “Dreams are weird enough as they are, but this one was extra weird than weird. Ya know, weird but weirder?”

“Doctor?”

“Yes?” they said, meeting her gaze, and, goodness, Yaz could make out this was definitely the Doctor, the way they moved with a flurry of motion, the happy-go-lucky way she bobbed her head and piercings still on her left ear. “I’m regenerating, but it’s different, like, I’m not exploding into energy. Not literally exploding, but it’s like an explosion. Kind of. But changing, physically changing and it’s horrible. Feeling everything inside of me break and reform. Uh!” She screwed face up as if to convey the disgust, a very expressive face of disgust. “Makes me glad the worst regenerations get are your thoughts going walkabout for a few days or-.”

“Doctor?”

“I’m getting to the good part,” she retorted.

“ Look at your, um, hands?”  _ Paws? Hands? Both? _

The Doctor looked down. “Why my-oooooh!” Yaz swore her eyes had never grown so large in surprise and wonder. Then searching the rest of themselves to realise quite a number of things all at once. “I’m different. Don’t feel different, I mean, I do, but not new different, more like having the flu different……” her words trailed off and returned to meet Yasmin's gaze. “Why aren’t you angry?”

“About what?”

“I haven’t got any clothes on.”

“Clothes?” Yasmin looked down and shot right back up. “Clothes!”

“They must’ve, um, come apart when, uh, this happened. I think.” The Doctor looked about herself. “I’ve got a tail!” She sounded quite pleased by that to Yasmin and, leaning over to see, saw how much it was wagging back and forth. “It’s all bushy and….that’s weird.”

“What?”

“The wagging. Not used to that as a sensation.”

“Morning all,” Graham's voice came from behind them, “did anyone else hear a……” He stopped and stared at Yasmin, then to the Doctor and then back to Yaz as if she would have an answer. “Yaz?”

“Morning, Graham. How’s the back this morning?” said the Doctor with a wave unperturbed by anything at all. “I think I might be a werewolf.”


	2. The Morning Routine is (Not Quite) the Same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's always been breakfast in the morning on and off the Tardis. The Doctor's always been there to join them. Nothing about that has changed except for her being a werewolf now.

There had never been a need to take stock of how many wardrobes there were aboard the Tardis and what one could expect to find in them. The Doctor, up to now, had considered it a frivilous chore. If she needed a coat she would grab the first one off the closest clothes rack and roll up the sleeves if need be. If she needed a change of shoes for sandals she'd latch onto the first pair to catch her eye (Roman Sandals from the time of Claudius - oddly familiar fella though she could never put her finger on it, something about his face - were rampent as rabbits whenever the need for them arose). If Yasmin ( _Lovely Yasmin_ ) needed anything to wear she'd be questing with care to find it and return, arms full, apologising for the wait.

The Doctor's predicament. Not a bad predicment to be in by any stretch of the imagination. There were definitely predicaments she'd avoid to be in than having acquired a sizeable amount of mass, causing to her stand a fair few heads taller than everyone else, though that was wholly dependent on if she could stay balanced on her hind-legs without dropping down onto all-four; arms (she puzzled over whether to call them arms or forelegs) reaching out far further; hind-legs jointed in a whole number of new ways and a very bushy tail. Everything about her differed significantly from where she started the day before.

So the problem was, for all the choices on offer across the myriad of wardrobes filled to the brim with multistory mazes of clothes racks, cupboards and mirrors, every trend, every styling, every era, every size for a humanoid shape of the ape descendent variety, at the tip of her claw, nothing came close to fitting her re-proportioned physique. And that was before she began to ponder how she'd manage to get any of it on given her fiddly digits were stumpier, clawed and less articulable and forelegs and hindlegs joints were far different from anything she'd experienced before.

The thought of Yasmin akwardly asking her _“Do you need a hand with this?”_ as she, the Doctor, lumbered away, struggling to to balance on her hind-legs and ending up using the wall for support most of the way, came to mind. Maybe she should've accepted the help.

-

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, the fam ate the last scraps of a well prepared breakfast courtesy of Graham.

“So the Doctor's a werewolf? Fangs? Claws? Eyes? Ears? Hair? Tail? Everything?” Ryan had yet to see the Doctor and remained unaware of what to really expect. Travelling the length and breadth of time and space did a lot of things to a person's perspective on a great number of matters. Macro, micro and everything in-between. This also meant the multitude of options it gave him to consider grew substantially. No longer limited to the routine and expected, his mind plucked and picked at the countless possibilities of what exactly a werewolf would look like in the Doctor's case. Even the brief description from Graham and Yasmin left a lot of room for hundred of ideas to occupy his mind.

Graham looked up from the last slice of overdone toast he was buttering. “The works.”

“You think this is a Time Lord thing for the Doctor?”

“Course, it isn't.” He said, taking a bite out of his piece of toast before adding as he chewed thoughtfully: “She would've....mentioned it.....I'd expect.”

“Hasn’t stopped her on a few things.”

Yasmin sipped from her third cup of tea for the day (the old copper kettle had been simmering when they’d arrived) before intervening. “She nipped herself on a wolf’s head display at the museum yesterday. You two were dusting plaster off yourselves when it happened.”

“Why’d you let me run my mouth off about Time Lords being werewolves then?”

“ Wanted to see where you’d go with it, Ryan.” She took another sip of tea, trying hard not to smile any more obviously than she already was. 

A sheepish smile made its presence known as if even he couldn't quite believe Time Lords might be werewolve. “Crazy to think about it though.”

“Why's that?”

“If someone asked how you'd think the Doctor became a werewolf what would you say?”

Yasmin pondered everything she knew about werewolves, admiting it all came up from anything she'd seen as a kid on the telly or anything she'd read. Very little of it helped so she settled on everything and anything life aboard the Tardis had taught her. “Planet of werewolves.”

Graham looked at Yasmin. “ Why would there be a planet of werewolves?”

Ryan gestured his hands at Graham as if there not being a planet of werewolves would be the stranger possibility. “What would've you pegged it on, Granddad.”

“Dunno, space cult with a fixation on, uh,” he said, raising his slice of toast as if it might suddenly act as landing for the thing to come to mind, “creating a theme park staffed by medically altered lifeforms.”

Yasmin and Ryan wanted to point out how convoluted that sounded only to remember how many convoluted situations they'd gotten caught up in since travelling with the Doctor.

“Could see that happening,” Ryan agreed.

“ This is the Doctor. The odds do go right out the window once she’s in the picture,” noted Yaz and then looked to the door. “Thought she'd be done by now.”

“ Give her a bit of time, Yaz. Probably still readjusting to it,” said Graham.

Yasmin fiddled with the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver, laying on the table next to her empty plate, careful to avoid anything even discernable as a button or switch. How the Doctor managed to produce so many functions from a device with so few ways of inputting anything baffled her. Before Ryan had woken up and after the Doctor had left for a change of clothes, she and Graham had gathered up what remained of her clothes left strewned across the walkway, utterly destroyed beyond repair, just tattered scraps of fabric which, from a guess, had put up a decent fight before finally giving out whatever had happened over the course of the night. “Seemed pretty adjusted to it already. If you didn't know any better you'd think she's always been like this.”

“You don't sound convinced,” said Ryan.

“No, I am  _ (Not completely _ ) _ , _ it's just, well, she's kind of insistent on walking on her hind-legs regardless of how many times she's lost her balance. That’s the dead giveaway she’s new to this.” A thought struck from out of the blue and physically recoil into herself. “Oh, we should've stuck with her. What she's tripped down some stairs?”

As if fate intended to settle a brewing storm before it could grow strong, the three of them caught onto the pitter-patter of footsteps, followed by something slamming into the floor, fumbling back onto their feet quickly and taking a series of shakier steps trying to play it cool before, finally, the Doctor came into view, framed by the kitchen door. Doors, to the three of them, gave a very clear idea of just how much bigger the she had gotten in her new state. Where once there was a good amount of clearance between head and top edge of the doorway, the Doctor loomed large to be partially obscured. If the Tardis had been rocked by an unknown force which would cause the lights to power down; them to be seperated and have them anxious by the lack of the mechanical purring, she could easily be mistaken for an entity with bloodthirsty eyes and a hunger for the prey eluding it so easily as it roamed the corridors in search of them, hungry for prey eluding it so easily. But that wasn’t there, it was the Doctor, sheepishly crouching down and giving them the cheeriest, though somewhat menacing, smile only she could muster in the morning.

“How do?”

Ryan stared at the Doctor slack-jawed. “Whoa! Doctor, you're huge.”

“Is it that noticable?” she said, playfulness soaking through the thick layer her voice's low, rough growl.

“Nah, Doctor, it's just when they told me I thought you'd more, um, less, um, ya know,” his hands circled one another, weaving an answer out of the hundred of threads his mind had produced between being told and her arrival, “less epic fantasy and more Wolf Man....in space.” 

Yasmin was relieved by that and to see she had managed to recreate her ensemble minus the boots and suspenders ( _ Shame _ ) , though the fur beneath the fabric puffed out to distort what would have been a lean fit before, part of her t-shirt rode up as if she had given up trying to get it pulled down or tucked in and trousers did not quite fit to the new contours of her legs, seemingly struggling not to tear in places with each step she stook.

The Tardis seemed disinclined to change anything about the size of this door or any door for that matter since the Doctor had woken up ( _ Might be annoyed she didn’t take care of herself _ , Yasmin thought, looking up at the rafters and glaring at it in hopes that the Tardis would sense her annoyance) so forcing her to awkwardly and shakily work her way through the doorway. The kitchen suddenly became comically undersized for the Doctor’s needs.

The Doctor, from Yasmin's perspective, tried to stand on her hind-legs assuredly and walk over to them, only to quickly clutch onto the counter, seemingly trying to figure something out.

Ryan flinched with a start. “ You okay there, Doctor?”

“ Bit. It’s all off. I think I’m meant to be on all-fours for this,” she said before parting with the counter and managing to take a few steps away from it before her balance went out of whack, causing her to fumble onto all-fours. “Gonna need a bit of time getting used to this. Spent lifetimes bipedal so where's the problem in....in spending part of one as a quadruped for a bit?” Intrigue and excitement overrode any annoyance there might've been in the Doctor's voice as she moved towards them and plopped herself at the end of the table, sat on the floor, hunched over and stared at the fam. They in turn craned their necks to meet her gaze. “This isn’t gonna be a problem for anyone, is it?”

“Doesn't change anything, Doc ,” said Graham.

“ Absolutely fine,” agreed Yasmin

“ You’re a werewolf,” said Ryan with the reverence of someone who wasn't above stopping on an episode of Power Rangers if it happened to be on the telly. Everyone looked at him. “Not a full-blown werewolf. Kind of imagined,” he said, quite bashfully and gestured to the spot between his eyebrows, “you’d have antennas or something around here.”

The Doctor tilted her head, causing her ears to go skew-whiff and Yasmin to wish she could pull on them gently. “Why antennas?”

“Wolf Man in Space. A lot of people at the musuem were like that. You'd expect one thing and then there's another thing on top of that. Ya know. Hadn't really thought you'd look....so run-of-the-mill.”

“Run-of-the-mill?” said the Doctor taken back with faux-outrage. “I’m weird. Good weird. Best kind of weird.”

“Run-of-the-mill ain't bad either. Best kind,” Ryan insisted. “This is really cool that you're a werewolf.”

It should’ve been a twist to say that, an utter oddity of a thing to even say let alone consider “ _The Doctor’s a werewolf”_ but the words didn’t land with the impact they might’ve done not so long ago when this way of life was just flights of fancy. Shot at. Fleeing. Saving the day. Righting wrongs. Bettering rights. Witnessing the birth of suns, planets and moons. The beginning of fire crystal spires sprouting from the snow of a world in the decade long depths of winter. Maybe if it happened in the minutes after they first met the Doctor, maybe, just maybe, they might have reacted differently. But then, she had fallen from the sky and crashed through the ceiling of a train carriage without a scratch so maybe they would’ve taken that as a given at the time too.

The Doctor was already tinkering on other matters of other matters. “Werewolf? Timewolf? No! That doesn’t make sense. Do like it. I like Timewolf. No. No. No. Freywolf. Freywolf. Freywolf.” She repeated, playing around with the word as though it were putty in her paws.

Graham, Ryan and Yasmin were amazed at how expressive the Doctor’s new features were considering the abrupt change, every single one of her thoughts, playing out in real-time as she fiddled and prodded at the word.

“Werewolf. Werewolf works,” suggested Ryan.

“ Werewolf it is!” exclaimed the Doctor and attempted to give what everyone assumed was meant to be the paw equivalent of an affirmative thumbs up. She seemed intent on forcing it until she winced. “Ow! Gonna avoid that for a bit. New joints. New fiddly digits.” She wiggled them on the opposing paw for added effect. “New everything. Not new everything. Nowhere near it being new everything situation. Right, Yasmin?”

“Not in the slightest,” she answered and tapped at the Sonic Screwdriver. She held it up. “Oh, Graham found this among what was left of your clothes.”

“My Sonic! Didn't fiddled with any of the settings? Takes forever to get it all into place.”

Yasmin chuckled. “Doctor, none of us even know where to start even if we wanted to.”

“Making sure, Yasmin,” she said and reached across, fiddly digits gripping onto her Sonic and, in a split-second of Yasmin letting go out it, clattered to the table.

Ryan leaned in slightly to get a better look at the Doctor's hand/paws, they were stumpy digits, very stumpy, yet they seemed to have joints akin to human fingers. “Can you actually use them like fingers?”

The Doctor made a number of faces and tried to pick it up again several times, each time like a claw machine, failing to hold onto to it for more than a second before dropping freely to the table. “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reposting this chapter because I went through one massive "No. I don't like how some of these chapters are turning out. BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD!" phase. Kind of similar, kind of different, to the previous version in places. 
> 
> The next chapter is gonna be completely dumbed for something else.
> 
> Original version of this was posted on April 9th of this year.


	3. In Need of a Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything has a learning curve. That includes fiddly digits.

Clatter. Clatter. Clatter. Clunk. Clink. That was the mood of the console room, the Doctor trying to get a handle on how to hold her Sonic Screwdriver. No articulate fiddly digits for her anymore. Just the bunch of stumpy, clawed digits with a questionable level of articulation.

She had insisted they didn't need to worry, all the while trying to grab her Sonic and having it clatter to the table multiple times, to which the fam very gently suggested that maybe, just maybe, taking things easy for a few days to adjust might be for the best. So the day-to-day routine of life aboard the Tardis finally, after half an hour of debate, drifted off into a state of hibernation. Leaving everyone to settle for days of not much to do. Games Room. Library. Watching the Doctor fiddle with her Sonic in an endless cycle of trying to pick it up, succeeding (intermittenly) and pointing it out dramatically only for it to be flung across the room, clattering against wall and floor alike, leading her to go on a brief search and rescue. The commotion of realisation, excitement and the first rumblings of annoyance at how much of a struggle it was to get a pair of trousers on loomed large. Rejiggled joints. Reshaped limbs. Tail wagging. Every new and changed aspect of herself now forming a barrier previously unheard of.

Yasmin sat on the edge the step leading to the console, arms resting on her raised knees and watching the Doctor go about this new routine. A rather battered and aged copy of _The Trials of Rumpole_ laid next to her, though it might as well had been left in her room for all the intention she had to read it at this point. More interested in the Doctor than anything else.

The Sonic Screwdriver went flying and landed across the room for the uncountable time that hour. To Yasmin's relief, as the Doctor came and went in search of it, it hadn't managed to get lodged behind one of the panels which formed the outer wall of the room where the Doctor's immense and rejointed arms were not up to the task of reachng for it. That had fallen to her, not that she minded, reaching in and just about managing to grab onto the tip of it from a bundle of cobweb wiring hidden in the space.

“Aren't you at all worried about breaking it, Doctor?” she asked, after another clattering and clunking of the Sonic.

No reply came for half a minute, the Doctor had already scurried away in search of where it landed and then having to try pick it up with great difficulty. “Break it?” she retorted, aghast by the very suggestion, from across the room where she busied with putting it back into her coat pocket. “These are built to last centuries.”

“The one you built?”

The Doctor began the return trip to the spot near Yasmin. “Of course.”

“Out of scrap?”

“Recycling's very important."

“In a workshop?” Yasmin steadily craned her neck further and further up as the Doctor drew near, keeping her line of sight locked onto the Doctor's, right up to the point she loomed over her.

“Have to work with what we're given.”

“In a rush?”

“Oi! Don't knock it until you've tried. Takes a lot of ingenuity to build one of these in a rush. More so when you've got to improvise and have a head full of holes.” She started to slowly turn around through a series of shuffling steps only to stop at the sound of Yasmin's voice:

“Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“Centuries? Is that in human centuries or Time Lords centuries?” She'd meant it half-joking and half-curious only to be met by the Doctor proceeding to give it some serious thought.

“Never really given it much thought. Supposin,” she said with a shift of her lower jaw, “It'd be in Tardis years. If there's one certainty in all of time and space, Yasmin, it's the Tardis.”

“So it has a little counter and everything for that?” Again she meant it half-joking and half-curious.

“Yeah. Somewhere. Lost the manual so I've never been able to figure out where it's tucked away. Spent weeks and weeks trying to find it once.” She leaned down to Yasmin until the tip of her muzzle was inches from her ear; back arching; head jutting out in front of her and forelegs bending. Her breath was not at all anything Yasmin had expected, certainly, she expected it to be warm but not so sweet. _Does she really eat that many custards cremes?_ Was her only thought before the Doctor's voice, rough around the edges like torn up sheets of paper and low as possible as if she didn't want anything or anything to hear a word. “The Tardis won't tell me. Thinks I shouldn't have thrown it out.”

Yasmin turned her head and met the full force of the Doctor's face. Even like this, even buried beneath the elongated features, covered in fur, teeth gleaming and sharp and eyes screaming born to be wild, she could see the Doctor so clearly, noticing the smallest hint of blonde among the fur of her ears. “You said you lost it.”

The Doctor pulled back and Yasmin wish she hadn't. “I may've lost it when I had to jettison part of the interior once. Long story......actually, no, short story....drabble length.”

“A fire?”

“Yeah. Massive one. Can't for the life of me figure out how it got so out of hand.” A rather concerned look made itself known to the Doctor. “It's not like it's happened an uncountable number of times. Five times. Max. Perfectly safe. Promise.”

“You're really not selling me on the safe part, Doctor.”

The Doctor looked sheepishly to the floor in hopes of having a good answer make itself known.

“Doctor, I'm kidding. Never felt safer than when I'm with you,” she said and quickly added, “in the Tardis.”

The Doctor tail began to wag ever so slowly. “Sonic,” the word exploded from her lips followed by bashful grasping of her paw to pick it up, right out of the pocket.

“Do you need a hand?”

“Nah. Fine,” she said quickly and punchuated it, as if to prove all was well, with managing to pick it up, stumpy fingers bending and twisting around it awkwardly just to keep it from slipping free. “See?”

Good for appearances sake, good for the moment, but not what the Doctor wanted. “I do.”

Clatter. Clatter. Clink. Clunk. So the day continued, the Doctor steadily, very steadily, figuring out how to hold onto her Sonic without it flying free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a replacement chapter for a completely different version I had posted not so long ago. Any comments from before 27/04/2020 are for that previous one.


	4. Nosing Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scent in the air catches the Doctor's attention.

The Doctor stopped, closed her eyes, raised her head and sniffed the air, nostrils flaring wide and head filling with a flickering of static. A sensory experience erupted from nose to brain, information clogged up her mind with previously unperceived details which had, up to now, never been picked up on. Gallifreyans were sensitive when it came to their sense of smell, grabbing on a miniature of details others missed. An object's age, origins and composition were a doddal to comprehend. But this, this was different, suddenly it wasn't just age, origin and composition, it was a cascade of textures and layers she'd never grappled with before, impossible to pinpoint or understand in the slightest.

Still she sniffed and followed the scent to have drawn her away from repairs (her attempt at repairs) and led her to this part of the Tardis. Some long forgotten corridor, bearing all the marks of having gone unused for quite some time. Yet something in the air was coming from here, she could almost taste it on the tip of tongue, almost make out the word trying to form out of the information piling up and threatening to collapse under its own weight. What was it?

Pitter-patter of footsteps, passing by doorways and stopping to sniff once more. Certainly closer. It was quite an ambivalent sort of scent. Neither attractive nor repellent. One or the other would have given her a jumping off point. This? This left her drifting through an infinite number of possiblities.

Another sniff. Definitely close. Definitely stronger. What was it?

She should have been doing repairs. Finding the right tools. Figuring out how to use those tools. Finding out how to do repairs which only a few days came so easily thanks to near-infinite potential of fiddly digits. But she couldn't resist this experience dangling itself at the tip of her nose, even if it caused minor discomfort. What could she do? What couldn't she do? The scale of pros and cons flipped and flopped between them regularly. Pro? It didn't change anything about her personality wise ( _No urges. No uncontrolled outbursts. No bloodlust. No anything. Hmmmm. That's not good. Bit judgy to assume that's just how it is. How many werewolves have I encountered to assume that's rule rather than remarkable exceptions? Scotland. Brazil. Circus_ ). Con? Lack of fiddly digits. Pro? The fam were fine with it. Con? What if they stopped being fine with it. Con? Yasmin looking at her in fear. Pro? The scent peaked and she focused on that.

“Oh. Oh. Oh,” she murmured at the sight of door which had come to be open ajar, letting a thin line of light and the weakest draft to spill free. “Now what have I left inside of here?” she thought aloud. “Either you've come loose or you,” she said in the direction of the ceiling, “aren't paying attention to yourself. What if it was to the botany lab? Hmmmm. Can't have whatever's in their getting loose if it's still growing or I jettingsoned it. Do I like botany?” She thought about it, went over how it had been a real sweet spot for one of her younger selves and rolled her eyes. “No, it's not for me this time around. Werewolf or not. But you, what was it?”

The Doctor eased a claw into the gap and pulled it open, letting a fresh chill of an early spring breeze flow freely and the beating heart of the scent finally clicked into place from what she saw. “Well. Well. Well. Aren't you lot a surprise.”

-

No matter where someone started from in the Tardis and wandered through its great and grand corridors, they would feel as though they had not gone all that far before finding what they needed. Whether that be one of the many wardrobes, countless libraries, several games rooms, multiple bedrooms, dozens of kitchens, many secondary console rooms, tens of reading rooms and the one laundrete, it would always (always) be a few minutes walk away.

For Yasmin the toaster had decided to go on the frizt. Old iron stove. Old copper kettle. A lot of old everything in the kitchen except for the toaster itself which screamed “Early 90s. Argos. On sale” from looks alone. That also, as it turned, included a draw full of used plug fuses. Next port of call was for the Doctor. Console room? No one, some tools on the floor, scattered by the console itself, but no Doctor.

So she wandered a little way into the Tardis, not so far to become unaccustomed to her surroundings, far enough that maybe chance would shine its blinkered lights and lead her right into the Doctor's arms. A brown rabbit with floppy ears was not what she expected to see as she rounded another corner, causing her to stop abruptly and stare at the little thing, sat in the middle of the corridor and intently licking its paws in order to clean its face.

“Definitely on the right track,” she thought with the air of having experienced enough to know that seeing something so ordinary meant something extraordinary had had to have happened and that the Doctor's involvement was all but guaranteed. “Not up to some scheming involving the Tardis are ya?”

The rabbit looked up her and tilted its head.

“How would I go about telling if you're up to no good?”

The rabbit flopped onto all-fours and began, one little hop at a time, moving towards her without fear until it stopped and looked up, curiosity and a poorly developed survival instinct on full display.

Yasmin knelt down and reached out a hand, waiting for it to come that little bit closer. “Come on, if you're planning on any scheming you might be succeeding at that.”

The rabbit moved towards her hand, rather intrigued by this bipedal creature's manner and bopped its head against it.

“How did you end up here? Did the Doctor fall through the ceiling of a pet shop and take you along for a ride?”

The rabbit contented itself, nuzzling the hand for its warmth.

She took that as a good sign and picked it up. “Come on. I'll give you a lift. I'm looking for her myself.”

The rabbit wiggled it nose and relaxed into her arms as she stood back up.

Expectation had thinking it would be a while before she came across anything of note and if not that turning back to wait it out in the console room. Not so. The search came to a quick end. Another corner and there, catching her eye in an instant, was an open door and sudden freshness of a breeze.

“Definitely the Doctor,” she said, hand absentmindedly petting the rabbit and made her way to it. What to expect? A room. What kind of room? Whatever was causing the gentle breeze muddled with anything she could think of. What did she see?

“Doctor?” Was all she managed, looking upon the room before her, immense in scale with its clear blue sky and rolling hillside of the greenest grass she'd ever seen. Not so far away, sat the Doctor, surrounded by rabbits.

The Doctor looked up and waved. “Secondary console room,” she called as though that was the question needing to be answered rather than the rabbits. A great number of rabbits. “Well, one of them, at least.”

“The rabbits?”

“OH! Them? Got a bit sidetracked. Caught their scent. OH! You found Alberto!” Her eyes lit up with a mixture relief and delight. “She's such a charmer that one.”

Yasmin looked down at Alberto. Alberto continued to snuggle into her arms without a care in the world.

“Come on, take a seat. Close the door behind yourself,” she said, clearly embarrassed as the thought of it struck her finally. “May've forgot to close it myself earlier. Hehe.”

Twenty seconds later, the door was firmly closed and Yasmin sat opposite the Doctor.

“Rabbits, Doctor?”

“Rabbits.”

“They're just here?”

“Not just here. They've been here for quite a while. Isn't that right Monnet?” she said to the rabbit asleep by her left leg and looked back up to Yasmin. “They've been here for every spring the flowers have bloomed; every winter when the snow has arrived to stay for cycles untold; every autumns where the leaves have drifted free into the night; and every summer when the rains refused to give life to the river mighty and free. There shouldn't be a river in here, don't know what's up with that-and the soil has provided them with food every generation. That's how they recounted it. I added in the seasons by the way. Their a bit more abstract about specific things.”

“I was wondering about that. But how?”

“Definitely involved me. Can't remember the details.”

“What's so special about these rabbits if you were involved.”

“Besides the lack of any indicative issues of inbreeding, so they must be special in that regard, they're your run-of-the-mill household rabbit. I must've left them in here.

“And forgot about them?” Her voice caught for a moment before finding itself again.

“Not forgotten about. Sidetracked by other matters. Not that they minded.” She looked about, seeing them living well and living freely, then pointed at one with albino white fur and the reddest eyes. “That one's Eldric. They say she's the Eternal Champion and must serve Chaos. That's chaos with a capital C. Her life's riddled with pain and loss.”

The rabbit in question hopped merrily around with its cohorts.

“Rabbits have a very different definition for pain and loss,” the Doctor added after Yasmin gave her a very bemused and skeptical glance.

“I see. You speak rabbit?”

“Yeah. Horse. Baby. Octopus. Not great with that one. Can't hold a conversation with them for more than a few minutes before-”

“You run out of breath.”

“No. They're very bratty. Think they know everything there is to know. Get a few predictions right and suddenly they're the source of all knowable truth. Uh. Rude too.”

“That's a shame. I always thought they'd be a great laugh. See me do my party trick of predicting the future sort of thing/”

“You'd be surprised how many people think that. Space ones are. To be fair space ones of-Hey. Hey. Hey. You two!” she exclaimed without warning.

Yasmin snapped to the direction drawing the Doctor's full attention and saw two rabbits in the middle of a scuffle.

“No fighting in front of guests. That's very rude. What would your elders think?”

They stopped in an instant, though Yasmin suspected that was less to do with any etiquette the Doctor wanted them to follow and more just the sound of her voice. She could've said anything and gotten the same response.

“Where did you find Alberto by the way? Console room?”

“No. Hallway. I was looking for you. The toaster's on the fritz.”

“Did you look in the draw two draws over from it for a fuse?”

“Doctor, they're all used fuses in that draw.”

“Did you check?”

“Course, I did. None of them worked.”

The Doctor raked a spot of grass next to her with the tip of her claws. “Clear out. Definitely time for a clear out,” she said and then turned to the number of rabbits transfixed by their presence. “Not you. So don't worry.”

-

The toaster could wait. The repairs could wait. The Doctor and Yasmin roamed through an afternoon seeing the sights of what the rabbits thought of as important to their history. One of which being the console for the room itself, situated at the very centre. Made from what resembled granite with crystals acting as the controls and surrounded by six marble pillars reaching to the unthinkable heights of the room's ceiling.

But all things came to an end. “Ryan and Graham are going be wondering where we are,” said the Doctor as she and Yasmin made their way back down the hill where console presided.

“Should.” Yasmin fiddled with a thought, letting it linger to one side while quite engrossed by the rabbit vying for her attention while others leapt over her feet. “Doctor?”

“Yes, Yaz?”

“Your sense of smell, you said that's why you ended up here?”

“Oh, yeah, turns out my head's not wired for it.”

“Wired for it?”

“Gallifreyan's have a decent sense of smell as is. Can get plenty of detail from a sniff, but this thing,” she said, pointing at her nose which flared as if to make it clear, “is doing a lot more than my head can handle. If human's have a nose based on two-dimensions, Gallifreyan's three-dimensions, then this,” again she pointed at it, “is four-dimensions if not five-dimensions.”

“So you can't make sense of it?”

“Yes and no. Attractive though, couldn't turn away from a good roam when I smelt these little furballs. Now I know what the smell is.”

“Huh.”

“You smell like apples,” she said quickly.

Yasmin didn’t quite know what to make of that and stared intently at the ground before saying anything. “Apples? Which one?”

“Lots of different apples. Every kind of apple there is.”

“That’s a lot of apples to smell like, Doctor.”

“Maybe not every kind of apple there is. That would be silly. Don’t know if I’ve eaten or smelt every kind of apple there is to be sure and with this thing, I'm getting all kind of new details. Shame I can't make sense of it,” she said with a slight drop in her voice before perking right back up. “A majority of apples. You smell like a majority of apples I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating and-”

“You’re rambling,” she noted with a smile.

“Sorry.”

“I don't mind when you ramble. What about Ryan and Graham? What do they smell like?”

“Daffodils and roses.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter being completely replaced by a new version because I didn't really like how the last one turned out.
> 
> It's hinted at in one of the novels that the Doctor is also an Eternal Champion. Does explain a lot.


End file.
